"Australian Financial Review" Friday, February 28

by Geoffrey Barker

Australia is set to rebuff the US over an expected request that it co-sponsor a tough anti-China resolution at next month's Geneva meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Although the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Alexander Downer, has not made a final decision, he is understood to accept that Australia's trade interests require an extremely cautious approach to the tough line being pursued by Washington on human rights in China.

With the US already irritated by Australian opposition to the extra-territorial application of US legislation limiting trade with Iran and Cuba, a decision by Australia to distance itself from the US on the issue of China's human rights practices could undermine the Federal Government's efforts to build closer relations with Washington.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade, Mr Tim Fischer, said yesterday that although Australia would continue to pursue its commitments to universal human rights, "Australian and US interests might not always coincide on the matter of trade with China".

There is a strong belief in Government circles that Australia cannot afford, as one official said, "to line up automatically behind the Stars and Stripes" in any hard-line condemnation of China's human rights practices.

This was mainly because of the importance to Australia of its trade links with China, the official said, but also because of recent tensions in the Sino-Australian relationship over Taiwan and the visit of the Dalai Lama to Australia.

Senior government figures are relieved that the meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights, and consideration of the resolution on China, will not take place until after the visit to China by the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, from March 26 to April 2.

The UN meeting will take place between March 10 and April 18. Traditionally, the EU presents the resolution on human rights practices in China, with strong US support, towards the end of the meeting.

The uncompromising US line on human rights was reinforced by the new US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, in Beijing earlier in the week.

After meeting China's leaders, Ms Albright said she had raised "serious concerns about Chinese practices" and that human rights werer "a signature element in American foreign policy".

Ms Albright also said that if there was "not further progress" on human rights in China the US would consult with European friends and expect to "be going forward in Geneva".

Australian sources say the US would ask Australia to co-sponsor a resolution drafted by the European Union with US backing.

A spokesman for Mr Downer said yesterday that Australia did not yet have to decide what it would do. Senior Foreign Affairs officials said Mr Downer's final decision would depend on the wording of any resolution presented in Geneva.

But while Australia wants to be part of a broad Western consensus on what should be expected from China after it resumes sovereignty over Hong Kong in July, senior officials said yesterday Australia had to "play a different game from the US".

It remains to be seen how any such game would be made consistent with Mr Downer's strong professed commitments to a universal human rights policy, but DFAT officials are urging a pragmatic case-by-case approach, with an emphasis on what Mr Downer has called "practical outcomes".

Practical outcomes would be outcomes that did not involve adverse consequences for Australian trade prospects with China.

Although Australian is not a voting member of the UN Commission on Human Rights, it can co-sponsor a resolution and expects the US is likely to ask it to do so.

For five of the past six years, China has managed to persuade the Commission to vote for a "no-action" motion under which the resolution is not considered. This year the EU has yet to draft its resolution, and to seek wide support for it.

But DFAT officials say that, on balance, it is likely there will be a resolution and that the US will ask Australi and other liberal Western democracies to join in sponsoring it.